Genius of Moving Image: Pt 1

1. List two specific key relationships between Sam Taylor Wood's photography and film work.
Sam –Taylor Wood’s work expresses a juxtaposition of photography and moving image, her work purely consists of people and the emotions that people and the state of being. The photographs she produces examine through the highly emotional scenarios, and the social or psychological conditions in terms of a split between being and appearance.
2. How does the use of multi-screen installation in her work reflect narrative?
The use of multi screen installation in her work reflects narrative in a way that shows it is constructed rather than one that is being dictated to you. By piecing it together it can result in dysfunctional narratives that sometimes don’t work, but film is highly influential in her work as her influence is based on idea that film makes you feel as if you are entering a magical mystery tour of someone’s mind, which is what she interprets in her work.

What other photograaphers use film as an integral part of their work? List two with examples.

Gregory Crewdson an American photographer who makes images in small town America, he is best known for elaborately staged scenes which are quite dramatic and cinematic, although his work doesn’t consist of moving image, his photographs filmic settings that feature often disturbing but surreal events.

Another photographer who recently integrates film as part of his work is my favorite Fashion photographer Tim Walker; he brings all the fancy and intricate scene-making so fundamental to his renowned fashion photography. His first short film ‘The Lost Explorer’ is an exception to his creative work.

Research three video artists and explain their working philosophy.

1. Tim Burton an American filmmaker and artist, is famous for his dark, quirky themed movies such as Sleepy Hollow, Charlie and the Chocolate factory and Alice in Wonderland. Burton’s work is expressed through artistic visualization which he had discovered in his childhood, through his sketches and photographs Burton brought together all forms of art and cinematic ephemera to his films. His strength lies in his unique style of thematic fantasy life and emotional core that is captured in his work, it creates a sense of feeling of being in a dreamscape or in someone’ s mind is his visual theory that is integrated in his work.

2. Another filmmaker is James Cameron, who from early childhood had a huge interest in science fiction stories and fantasized about the making of motion pictures. This is what his main focus to the day is. He integrated his interests of science and art into his work which makes his work unique and effective, his films create a sense of a dreamscape of a world that revolves around science fiction, and his films like Terminator, Titanic and Avatar explore his unique interest.

‘I love the idea of being in another world and anything that transports me to another world is what I’m interested in’- (James Cameron).

3. Guillermo Del Toro is a director, producer, novelist, screenwriter and designer. He is best known for his creative fims such as Hellboy and Blade, his films draw heavily on sources as diverse as weird fiction, fantasy and war. He has always had persistant interest in fantasy and drawing monsters from his imagination. He has made action hero comic book adaptation to historical fantasy and horror films. His interpretations of mythological creatures and monsters is higly influenced within his films he believes monsters have multiple values and how you use them determines how they are portrayed as symbols of great power. He believes that all creatures, like angels and demons, vampires etc are characters that are living breathing metaphors which he has created from his own personal beliefs and values on life and religion.
As a screenwriter Toro beleives that 50 percent of narrative is the audio/visual storytelling, screenplay is the basis of it all but doesn't tell the movie it tells the story but doesn't tell the movie it tells the story but doesn't tell the whole movie. A lot of the narrative is in the details. Also he thinks:

Fairy tales tell the truth, not organised politics, religion or economics, those things destroy the soul, that is the idea from Pan's Labyrinth and surfaces to some degree in all my films'.

Show an example of a specific gallery space or a site specific location where a video artist or filmmaker has created work specifically for that space and been influenced by it.

An example of a specific location is Alnwick Castle, it has been used in number of film and tv programs including the book adaptation films of Harry Potter by author J.K. Rowling and producer David Heyman. It is probably best known as being the location of Hogwarts, the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The exterior of the castle is used for the exterior of Hogwarts shots, the famous Quidditch match and the broomstick lessons is set within the ramparts portrayed in scenes from the harry potter movies. It has also been used for other featured productions such as Elizabeth Taylor and Robin Hood the Prince of Thieves. It's an imposing place and can help you imagine the area around to be considered the famous town of Hogsmeade.

Genius of Photography: Pt 2

1. What are Typologies?
Typologies refer to a methodical image- making approach that summarizes a group of images in retrospect by anticipating the style that a given artist will utilize to record a particular subject. It can be compared to earlier photographs or a type of subject matter that an artist would be likely to portray; it’s used so that a viewer can get to know something better if it is compared to something else. Typologies discipline photography’s tendencies in order to create pure documents, just the facts and nothing else.

2. What was the 'Face of the Times'?
August Sander a commercial portrait photographer sis a typology of people, when he became a modernist in 1929, he published a selection of his portraits onto the all encompassing title ‘The Face of the Times’. By collecting people and fitted them into a frame but photographed them using a method of placing them in various social types such as Farmers, young farmers etc.

3. Which magazine did Rodchenko design?

Rodchenko designed the photography magazine called the USS en construction; it was a showcase of political propaganda glorifying the achievements of the soviet system that portrays radical photographic styled work combined with cutting- edge graphics.

4. What is photomontage?
Photo- montage is a graphic technique that took its cue from cinema montage, mastered by Rodchenko who had treated photographs as royal footage, suppressing their individuality collectivizing their energies. By cutting, pasting, retouching, and re- photographing them to conjure up dizzying visions of the future. Photomontage shows photographs for what they really are, mute documents whose meaning remains fluid.

5. Why did Eugene Atget use albumen prints in the 1920's?

Eugene Atget another commercial portrait photographer had created albumen prints during the 1800’s and all the way throughout to the 1920’s because he was skillful in it but found difficulty in using modern materials for photographs as he didn’t know how to use them.

6. What is Solarization? and how was it discovered?
Solarization was discovered by Man Ray in the late 1920’s, the use of it was through placing objects in a darkroom onto photographic paper and exposing it briefly to create interesting and unique patterns on the paper. H e had made the people look as though they’re faces are made of aluminum  which gave it a sleek and metallic look that portrayed them as super people slightly inhuman and robotic. Dark areas appear light or light areas appear darks suggesting that the photographic print is wholly or partially reversed in tone.

7. What was the relationship between Bernice Abbott and Eugene Atget?
Bernice Abbott was a young American photographer and one of Man-rays many assistants, who pictured Atget as a kind, living, breathing found object in 1927. Abbott became the largest collector of Atget’s work when she purchased his estate, bringing 5000 of Atget’s negatives to America popularizing the work Eugene Atget.

8. Why was Walker Evans fired from the FSA?
Walker Evans had been commissioned to produce propaganda images for the Farms Security Agency set up to the ease of the effects of depression in rural America. Evans’s understanding of documented photography was much more complex, but when Evans readily molded reality to fit his personal vision he couldn’t make that vision conform to the propaganda requirements of the FSA in 1937 and was sacked.

ITAP 2 : Genius of Photography- Pt 1

1. What is photography's 'true genius'?

Photography has intrigued us by showing the secret strangeness that lies beneath the world of appearances; it has showed images in different forms using various processes that made photography possible today. It has pleased, outraged, and often disappointed its viewers which is the reason why it makes it photography’s true genius.

2. Name a proto- photographer.

A proto- photographer that experimented with photographic processes was Henry Fox Talbot, the inventor of calotype process associated in the 19^th century, who made major contributions to photography as an artistic medium before the well-known Louis Degaurre the inventor of the degaurretype process which is also associated with the term ‘Mirror with a Memory’, or referred as ‘Mirror of Nature’ that signifies how one sees oneself in a mirror.

3. In the 19th century what term was associated with the daguerreotype?

French photographer Andre Disderi inventor of small photographs usually eight on one large photographic plate, given the term of ‘Carte De Visite’. An albumen print or photograph mounted in a stiff piece of card that frequently revealed portraits of celebrities of that time.

4. What is the vernacular?

The Vernacular contains some of photography’s greatest naturally occurring riches, merely as a gift of the medium itself rather than a product of the genius of the individual photographer. It was associated with any type such as keepsakes, advertising, forensics, documentation for records, passport photo’s, postcards etc every kind of photography that wasn’t intended as art or a piece of art form.

5.How do you 'Fix the Shadows'?
Fixing the shadows was a high purpose, in the 1830's it was found that certain chemcials were light sensitive, chemicals for e.g. silver salts, silver chloride and silver nitrate. To fix the shadows you had to be able to stop carrying the exposure which was troublsome. Henry Fox Talbot's use of fixing the shadows was through camera obscurer, with a mouse-trap camera that held the negative and carrying the paper but to be only exposed for a certain amount of time. Louis Deguerre attempted this also, but started in the early 1800's whose method was the creation of the deguerreotype to fix the shadows using a mirrored metal plate to fix his images.
6. What is the 'Carte de visite'?
The 'Carte de Visite' was a photograph mounted on a stiff piece of card measuring 11.4x 6.3cm, It was introduced in the mid- 1850's by Andre Disderi. These cards frequently  portrayed portraits of celebrities of the day for collection into home albums also known as albumen prints.

7. Who was Nadar and why was he so successful?
Another photographer of the 18^th-19^th century was Gaspard Felix Tournachon also referred to as Nadar who photographed up and coming stars in a style that rewrote the rules of photography which made his style unique and original. Photographing celebrities as equals, his portraits of artists unrivaled by the character of the person with them just standing in his studio as themselves. His photography presented a likeness and authenticity about them.

8. What is pictorialism?
Pictorialism an international style and aesthetic movement that dominated photography during the 19^th century, it was photography at its most po-faced, as it merely created an image rather than simply recording it. Imitating printmaking and drawings the mean, moody and occasionally magnificent Pictorialism. 

Image and Text!

A Brief History of Production and The Experts!

The key to becoming an expert is merely through practice, most experts can consider themselves because of specific qualifications and hard work, sometimes its not only the case except for hard work, hard work is expected as it helps a practitioner become an expert, but most importantly it has to do with skill and technique with that the practice can be perfect. Experts are considered to have an intense ongoing experience in what they do in order to push the boundaries of obvious mindsets a creative must work hard and expect challenges along the way. In some cases perfection isn’t the most important factor to be considered most experts are best at their profession because of skill and technique this helps an expert create their own style and own techniques and methods within that particular profession whether it is photography, graphics, or illustration. As a photography student it is natural to get inspiration and ideas from other photographers and visual communicators in the field in order to create my own style of work.

Being a photography student I have come across various photographers but one in particular that inspired me the most for his spectacular and marvelous black and white photography is Ansel Adams, best known for his black and white photographs, Adams had developed the zone system as a way to determine proper exposure and adjust the contrast of the final print. The resulting image and depth characterized his photographs. From childhood Adams had appreciation for nature, which would become his primary source of photographic inspiration. He was a visionary figure in nature photography and wilderness preservation. He Inspires me as he produced images of nature which some people take for granted and don’t’ appreciate as much as they should. Adams primarily used large format camera’s despite their size, weight, setup time and film cost, because of the high resolution helped ensue sharpness in his images. Adams photographs are reproduced on calendars, posters and in books making his photographs widely distributed, this skill and preservation is unique in this world of photography today which demonstrates how his skills and techniques is what made him an expert.

From doing research on the history of production I found it interesting at how the first book in Europe was printed , During the 1300’s printing was first printed on cloth, it was in the 1400’s that Johannes Guttenberg a German printer and publisher had designed the Guttenberg Bible also known as the 42-line Bible. It was the first book printed with movable type in the west and the first major book produced on a printing press anywhere in the world. He had used oil ink and a wooden printing press similar to the screw press and production of movable type to produce the printed version of the bible. It is said Guttenberg had created the bible traditionally using metal alloy and hand mould for casting type.

Story Development: Film and a Hero's Journey!

The Hero’s Journey relies on some variation of the three act structure. There are a number of ways to recognise this particular narrative structure the three act structure can help construct the story into three acts that the audience can familiarize with as initial beginning middle and end in some cases it doesn’t have to be in that particular order argues Jean-Luc –Godard.

" Every movie needs to have a beginning, a middle and an end, but not necessarily in that order."

Jean- Luc- Godard.

Demonstrating the three act structure from a most recent film such as Twilight: Breaking Dawn seems rather easy but explains the hero’s quest to freedom, the story consists of the three act structure to be useful in terms of describing the protagonists story, for example most narratives consists of an exposition or in other words an equilibrium of the story this suggests the normality of the beginning, for e.g. The wedding of Bella and Edward and following the journey to the honeymoon, at this point in the narrative the equilibrium is established and act 1 has occurred and the protagonist makes a commitment which leads to the main action of the movie. Enter Act 2 which suggests how the equilibrium changes due to some sort of conflict or complication which disturbs the equilibrium and this happens to create a sequence of events, for instance Bella finds out that she is pregnant with Edward the vampire’s baby this immediately changes the path of the protagonist and it results in conflict with Edward who doesn’t want to keep the baby if it means losing Bella.

The protagonists journey gradually changes through many obstacles such as romance, pain and conflict which results in the protagonist in danger of this creates a new equilibrium and follows through to act 3 which is the resolution and to amend the disturbance in hope to find a better and new equilibrium such as the protagonist character Bella gives birth to the half-vampire half-human child and dies and overcome the threats and the danger that followed which ends in a new equilibrium where Bella turns into a vampire and this helps create a cliff-hanger that makes the audience to want to watch more, and have pleasure in finding out what happens in the end.

The Hero’s journey is about someone in this case the protagonist sheltered in some way, who receives a call to adventure- Bella and Edwards’s magical wedding. This protagonist must leave the comfort of her world she has always known and set forth on a dangerous quest. Gaining allies and learning new things along the way, the protagonist faces many challenges and barely escapes death all to gain insight or freedom. Joseph Campbell demonstrates the different stages of the hero’s journey that are familiar to the audience. This helps the audience identify the situation or dilemma and ultimately engage within the story and follow the hero’s journey till the end. The three act structure helps dominate the narrative in a structured plan that enlightens the audience on the journey and taps into an archetypal pattern.

Production and Outcomes: Interpretation and Delivery!

It is considered important when looking at a creative consisting on its zeitgeist of their time, and how it has value over its messages, the content and the interpretations of the piece, researching the content of a piece can have its influence on you as a practitioner. Many designers interpret zeitgeist with many communication whether it is in photographic format or illustrative format, both formats have a similar interpretation, for example Alice in Wonderland is demonstrated in many shapes and forms over the years each era demonstrated the character of Alice in a different way but interpreted similar elements of Alice whether it is photography or a film or illustration. Time and place has a massive effect on the production whether it is on the content or the making of the piece.

 For instance the interpretation of Cinderella has been demonstrated in many ways in time, each era shows the character blossom from a servant to a princess but the interpretation of the character in its time shows a great deal of inspiration from the story, To demonstrate the poster of the 1950’S Cinderella is shown in an animated content which shows the illustration of the character’s appearance the poster shows the posture and the style of the character to be less complex and illustrative to suit the time it was originally created. Whereas the poster of the 1997’s Rodger and Hammerstein’s Cinderella is somewhat different in race and color, but also interprets the similarities and likability of the Cinderella character for example the costume and posture of the appearance is somewhat similar to how the character of Cinderella is portrayed giving a sense of archetypal value and also fits in with the zeitgeist of its era.

Furthermore through the years and the time and place in which Cinderella was initially created shows how the story and character has improved and inspired other creative’s to interpret its message. For example looking at photographer Annie Lebovitz reminisce in Disney dreams,  has captured that spirit in time and interpreted it to create a sense of inspiration as well as merely a use for fashion photography such as the beautiful blue gown, which is a stereotypical view of the characters appearance and costume.  Cinderella has been inspiring to different creative’s during their time, portrayed in platforms such as movies and books etc. It also comes to show that most inspirations come from other creative’s but the interpretation points out that the initial piece lives on throughout time and place of its production, reminding the audience of its key marketing ploys behind the making of the piece and the use of platforms that help deliver the message to the audience.